The Next Draft: Enjoy our beer, don't steal our glass

Wednesday

I have acknowledged a dark truth about my many visits to breweries around the state. At some point, unwittingly, I’ve been a party to one of the most common crimes in craft beer: glassware theft.

Friends tell me they have stolen glasses, even from their favorite breweries. They store them on their shelves — the theft forgotten.

“It’s not right,” said Paul Wengender, founder of Greater Good Imperial Brewing Co. in Worcester and its offshoot Soul Purpose. “People have to live with it in their conscience. They’re stealing something that’s already for sale right there in our taproom.”

Stolen glassware has become so commonplace that breweries treat it as a cost of doing business. The sturdy Willi Becher pint glass is a frequent target, along with the sleek German stange glass.

But just because breweries recognize they can’t completely stop the crime from happening doesn’t mean they don’t feel disrespected when it does.

“We think people should enjoy our beer in the right glassware,” Wengender said. “It’s not cheap, and we know we’re not making money on the balance sheet of what we sell, for a modest price of maybe $5 to $10, versus what walks out the door.”

Wengender does not track the number of glasses that have gone missing from his Millbrook Street taproom, whether because of breakage or theft. It hasn’t been enough to cause alarm.

“We’re not losing thousands of dollars in glassware,” he said. “Maybe it’s a couple hundred dollars, because of people who don’t have a conscience.”

Sean DuBois, co-owner of Stone Cow Brewery in Barre, wanted to record the amount of stolen glassware when the brewery first opened in 2017 so he would know how many he’d need to reorder. After counting about 5,000 glasses swiped in the first year, DuBois stopped.

“I wish we didn’t have any glassware stolen, but it is what it is,” he said, adding, “I’ve never seen anybody put a glass in their pocket or purse, but I know it happens.”

Breweries are torn between resignation and anger when dealing with glass theft. While they would never condone customers stealing glasses, they don’t want to run their taprooms like tightly secured art galleries. They would rather cultivate warm, welcoming spaces, free of signs warning potential thieves, and with staff members who don’t hover over patrons watching their every sip.

“More than half of our guests are regulars. They hang with us, they’re our friends and they don’t steal from us,” said Matthew Steinberg, co-founder of Exhibit ‘A’ Brewing Co. in Framingham. “The beer tourists on the weekends are supportive of breweries, so they don’t generally steal from us. But, whether it’s an 80-cent pint glass, a $60 sweatshirt, a piece of art from the wall or an orange cone from the parking lot, in my book it’s the same. And if you steal a glass from a brewery, every time you look at it, it reminds you you’re a thief.”

Feeding the theft, Steinberg said, is a troubling assumption about the craft beer industry: “In this industry, unlike any other industry I can think of, you have this weird perception from the consumer that stuff like this is free and should be free.”

For breweries, the most effective response to glass thieves has been making their glassware unremarkable, removing or paring down their labels.

Night Shift Brewing’s Everett taproom is one of the busiest in the state, but general manager Jamie Sherlock said glass theft is not a problem because the brewery only serves in brandless glasses.

“There isn’t much of a drive for people to steal our glasses,” Sherlock said, “because they’re not getting much out of it.” Night Shift still has branded glassware, but patrons must purchase it from the merchandise shop.

Exhibit ‘A’ stripped its branding from the tiny tasting glasses served with beer flights. “Those were disappearing like crazy,” Steinberg said.

Stone Cow cut the full label from its pint glasses, replacing it with a simple four-leaf clover, so the glasses still carry a tinge of uniqueness.

“I don’t think people have been stealing as many of the simply-branded glasses,” DuBois said.

As expected, the companies that sell branded glassware to breweries have a different take on the crime.

Grandstand Glassware & Apparel, a Lawrence, Kansas, company that has sold printed glasses and apparel to several breweries in Massachusetts, has pitched the idea of glass theft as a marketing opportunity.

“We view it as an investment,” said Josh Christie, Grandstand’s director of marketing. “Anyone who owns a business with some sort of marketing or advertising budget should be spending money on impressions. If you can’t keep your audience from taking your glasses, at least give them a glass they’ll want to take.”

Rather than remove branding from glasses, Christie said, breweries should combat theft through promotions like “keep the pint nights.”

“Whatever your cost is on glass or whatever you’re willing to co-fund, you charge them, and they can keep the glass,” he explained. “You’re offsetting your cost that way. And your customers are getting your pint: They take it home, put it on the shelf, have a buddy over and share a pour in the glass. Say their friend likes the glass and thinks it’s cool, they then visit your brewery.”

Of course, Grandstand just sells the glassware, Christie said; the breweries need to figure out how to limit or take advantage of the theft.

“I would be shocked if someone could figure out a way to stop it completely without alienating your customers,” he said. “You don’t want a serial glass stealer, and you don’t want to put up signs that say we look the other way if you steal a glass. It’s just one of those unwritten rules of a brewery, that you know your glass is going to be stolen at some point, so how do you capitalize on it?”